Of course Keith. This is merely an observation as reported by health professionals. I've been thinking more about this while I was cooking and eating dinner. Try this out and I'm using the word "you" in the general sense.

Most of us here have been to large sporting events, music festivals and the like with very large groups of people at least a few times. Take the Miami Dolphins stadium for example, capacity just over 65,000. I once saw a Rams game in Anaheim, roughly same number of fans. Say they had a promotional drawing for a brand new $50,000 pick up truck. One person out of 65,000 won that truck. Would anybody really be upset they didn't win? Of course not, you're sitting there surrounded by this huge sea of people and the odds are 65,000 to 1.

The population of the US is about 331 million. 65,000 divided into that is just under 5,100. Just for round numbers say 5,000. That means if the confirmed number of cases in the US reaches 5,000 that equals one person in that stadium. We'll almost certainly get to 5,000. Take it up by 10. 50,000 cases, ten people in the stadium. OK, that's not too farfetched either. If those ten won the truck again would you really be upset thinking you should have won, you must of been cheated or something? Again, of course not. 6,500 to 1 is still very long odds. They're not that bad in Vegas.

Take it up by a factor of 10 again. Now we're talking a half million confirmed cases in the US, 500,000 people. That's still only 100 people in that stadium. Does taking it from 10 to 100 out of 65,000 really upset you that much? You're still sitting in an absolute ocean of people everywhere. A massive parking lot, probably takes you a good half hour just to get out of the lot when the game is over. Surrounded by thousands and thousands of people in their cars. See my point?

Now a factor of 100 equals one in 650. When's the last time you went to a grocery store, even a huge one like a Walmart and 650 people were there? Lets say that one was there and he/she was infected. What would it take for you to get it? Beat odds of 1 in 650. There are tons of meds that people take every day because they need it where the documentation says the chance of dying from that med is around that number. I know I would take those odds if I had some bad affliction.

How many times have we all gone shopping and there's only 10-20 people there and two cashiers? What does it take to catch the virus from that one in whatever number of people at the store? First, very close contact, they basically have cough or sneeze right on you. Will you allow yourself to be that close to a total stranger in this envoronment? Probably not but sometimes it can't be helped. The other way is they left the virus on a door handle to the mens room or on a cart, a store shelf or even a can of coffee they touched but then put back. We all know how to handle that situation now.

Add all this up and is this something to really get upset about to be so worried you're paralyzed with fear?
Half a million cases just to get to 1 in 650 and even if you came fairly close to that one the chances of catching it from them are still quite low.

These are exceedingly rough numbers, you could throw out the population who are old enough or infirm they never go out shopping but other than that you would count everybody else including newborns because the kid could have it and they do the mom probably has it too. But still, now I'm assuming a total number of cases at a half million and fell free to take the odds down to 1 in 500. Still long odds. Will we get there? Who knows but even if we do consider these numbers.

Now if it goes up another factor of 10 to 5,000,000 cases and the fatality rate gets to 1 or 2 percent or 50,000 to 100,000 deaths. OK, time to hide in your well stocked, end of the world, zombie apocalypse/nuclear war bunker until there's a proven vaccine.

Bob

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